Zed said:I don't know how I could forget Worms. Anybody remember the Sheep, the Banana Bomb or the Old Lady?

uhm, Worms isn't exactly obscure. they've been releasing new games in that series continually over the years. though if you're referring to the FIRST game of the series... then i dunno.

hardcore_gamer said:Hogs of War was a worms like game on the PS1 and PC but in full 3D and with pigs instead of worms. It got so so reviews but I thought it was awesome. It was very fun and had a great sense of humor. It's a shame its so underrated.

i loved that game! :D i used to play it so much that the disc is now scratched to the point where it doesn't function properly anymore.

Doomhuntress said:
uhm, Worms isn't exactly obscure. they've been releasing new games in that series continually over the years. though if you're referring to the FIRST game of the series... then i dunno.

Yeah, I was referring to the Worms franchise before Worms Armageddon, which is the last one I played properly. But you are right, the series have been alive for some time, though I don't know how it compares to the "old" games because I haven't played them (I know this is not an excuse to consider a game "forgotten", but since WA I haven't see more than a couple of mentions of it anywhere, so I thought it was "forgotten").

Awww damn I loved me some Midtown Madness back in the day. I used to love just getting on the freeway and seeing how bad of a pileup I could make.

I just had a sudden memory come back - anyone remember the old DOS game Pyro II? You'd run around with cans of gasoline trying to make sure each level burned up as much as possible while still making it to the exit.

"Castle of Dr. Brain" may have carried the stigma of being edutainment, but it was a surprisingly fun point-and-click from Sierra, circa 1992. You're an intern for an eccentric scientist who can only meet the HMFIC by solving a series of bizarre puzzles contained within his absurd, reality defying castle. It featured fantastic VGA graphics (with a lot of hand drawn elements), an offbeat sense of humor and a difficulty slider you could adjust at any point during gameplay. The box claims it's for ages 7-12, but some of the challenges on harder difficulties are surprisingly cerebral.

"Castle of Dr. Brain" may have carried the stigma of being edutainment, but it was a surprisingly fun point-and-click from Sierra, circa 1992. You're an intern for an eccentric scientist who can only meet the HMFIC by solving a series of bizarre puzzles contained within his absurd, reality defying castle. It featured fantastic VGA graphics (with a lot of hand drawn elements), an offbeat sense of humor and a difficulty slider you could adjust at any point during gameplay. The box claims it's for ages 7-12, but some of the challenges on harder difficulties are surprisingly cerebral.

I'm not entirely sure how this game even happened. Dr. Brain had been going strong for four games as a Sierra property, featuring an eccentric old scientist (well, I think Lost Mind and Time Warp feature a different Dr. Brain from Castle and Island, but I'm not 100% sure). Then, next thing I know, Knowledge Adventure is making Dr. Brain games, featuring a much younger, orange-haired title character. I believe three were made, and of those three, my family only owned two of them, and I personally only played this one. The other two are a little more like the other Dr. Brain games I played (Lost Mind and Time Warp; didn't really get to try the first two, regrettably); solve puzzling minigames to work your way to an eventual goal. This one? An Unreal Engine 1-based first-person shooter.

That said, it's surprisingly fun. There's a lot more emphasis on solving (rather rudimentary) puzzles or maneuvering through obstacle courses than there is actual gunplay - your only weapon, the "Helping Hand", is really just a way to toggle switches without having to run up to them, and is only capable of temporarily stunning the enemies in the game (at best). As such, it's pretty much unlike any other FPS I've played.

"Thexder" and its sequel, "Firehawk," are late 80s/early 90s platform shooters, probably some of the first to feature mechs. Thexder battle suits not only use energy when taking hits, but from firing their primary weapon as well, an auto-aiming laser that makes a wide radar sweep every few seconds. They can also transform into jets, which is necessary for accessing certain areas. Both games are excellent, but "Firehawk" is a bit less grueling, for you see, "Thexder" was one of those notoriously difficult Japanese titles. You're expected to go through 16 levels on ONE life, with no save function. It's insane. I've never beaten it.

Agh! The Pigeon was fucking useless unless the path was almost entirely clear, it was generally less useful than the basic Homing Missile! Patsy's Magic Bullet, though... now that was the one to use.

Also:Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House, a surreal cartoon point-n-click game that I vaguely remember making very little progress at because I kept getting cursed and finding the same old items every time.

Standard vertical dogfighter shooter ala "Aero Fighters." Uses a shield system rather than a one hit/one kill/three lives setup. You can use points/money to upgrade your ship between levels, though with some of the more creative takes on this genre, the upgrades seem limiting. It's really relentless and repetitive, but the graphics are excellent, some of the very best of the time (mid 90s), not just for that genre but for VGA games in general. Music is dull but not unbearable.

BaronOfStuff said:
Agh! The Pigeon was fucking useless unless the path was almost entirely clear, it was generally less useful than the basic Homing Missile! Patsy's Magic Bullet, though... now that was the one to use.

Heh, you haven't had the thing get stuck on one rouge pixel, fly helplessly for about 10 seconds before pinging off its course in a random direction (usually my direction) and splatting both your turn AND your "Heavy" weapon in one go.

EDIT: Also without a recent sequel since the PS2 and Xbox era, Would the Timesplitters series of games count?

Not particularly obscure, but then again, it had a pretty niche gameplay, just like games like Traffic Department 2192.

For some reason, I feel that freeware/shareware games don't belong to such "forgotten gems" lists, primarily because there were way more of them vs commercial retail releases, and had much more quality variation and gameplay/style experimentation, so obviously you'll get an enormous number of "obscure" and "forgotten" games in that category. Just browsing through the "games" directory of any old BBS or Simtel archive mirror will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

It would make more sense to restrict this to commercial games that somehow failed to leave a mark at their time (in particular if, at first glance, there was nothing apparently wrong with them) or that left no obvious legacy, meaning that at best, they were just a product of their time and nothing more, or worse, the byproduct of some passing trend. Again, there are hundreds if not thousands of them even if you restrict yourself to e.g. arcades or a particular console.

But sticking to PC, I'd say Magic Carpet, Pyrotechnica, Cyberbykes, Maabus, Under A Killing moon, each for different reasons.

Magic Carpet: the actual Magic Carpet game was more of a showcase for its innovative graphics engine, which later was used in other games through the mid 90s, but after 3D accelerators hit the market, both the games and the engine were all but forgotten, let alone that it was overshadowed by Doom at its time.

Pyrotechnica: 3D puzzle-shooter reminding you of Descent with a "cyberspace"/Tron theme by Psygnosis. Big name, big expectations, but virtually unknown game, and sincerely it felt just like an abstract 3D sandbox. Probably a byproduct of the 90s "VR" craze.

Cyberbykes/Spectre Racer VR: Ah, the infamous polygon-graphics game released in 1995 by Realtek. Polygon graphics, in a world of Doom, Quake and DN3. OK. Right. A by-product of a time where everybody was trying to cash into that whole "VR" thing.

Maabus: pretty obscure FMV action-adventure title where you controlled a sort of robotic vehicle in first person view. Spawned across 4 CDs (in 1994!) and had the typical flaws of FMV games, in addition to having a postage-stamp sized action window. Windows-based too....when Windows 3.1 was still king. Using the dreaded WinG libraries. Meh. Definitively a product of its time.

Under A Killing Moon: not a bad game by any means, actually it's an adventure game classic, and the first game I recall using 4 CDs (!) in 1994. It had a sequel (The Pandora Directive) on 6 CDs (!) in 1995 or 1996, and that was it. After that, no more games like it, whether we're talking about the technology ( a hybrid of 3D FPS gameplay, with FMV cutscenes, and a clever action/dialog system) or the plot/style.